Commuterrant

Friday Random iPod Bad Workout Ten

Several blogmates are fond of the weekly ritual of posting songs from their iPods-on-shuffle-mode, to give a little insight into their tastes and personalities. In that spirit, I present 10 very bad workout songs from my iPod.*

-Silent All These Years, Tori Amos
-Superstar, Bette Midler
-Love Has No Pride, Bonnie Raitt
-Goodbye to Love, the Carpenters
-That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be, Carly Simon
-The Fiddle and the Drum, Joni Mitchell
-Angel, Sarah McLachlan
-That I Would Be Good, Alanis Morissette

...wait a minute, why are these all by women!?
-41 Shots, Bruce Springsteen
-Simple Twist of Fate, Bob Dylan

I think I just fell asleep on the elliptical.

*For the record, I am ashamed to admit that I don't own a sleek, cool, attractive iPod; I own a Creative Zen something-or-other. It's not as pretty, but it holds about a billion songs.

Pink is the New Red White and Blue

Proud of my homegirl from Philly:

Watch the video.

The Funniest Question Anyone's Ever Asked Me

"Were Richard and Karen Carpenter more than brother and sister?"

Henceforth Known as "Shot in the Head"

Poor Marc Cohn.  Aside from the 2 or 3 times "Walking in Memphis" is played on the radio each year, he hasn't gotten much PR or airplay over the last 15 years. Then he gets shot in the head, and he's everywhere. He's gotten more airtime for getting shot in the head than he did for marrying Elizabeth Vargas (TV reporter for 20/20) several years ago. Or even for having a hit song in the early 1990s.

A couple of weeks ago, I was flipping through the channels, and I came across Larry King interviewing Marc Cohn on CNN. I never watch Larry King, since he's so... well, awful. However, I had to watch this awkward train wreck of an interview.

• "How did it feel to get shot in the head?"
• "What were you thinking about when you got shot in the head?"
• "Where were you when Kennedy was shot in the head?"
• "Are you going to write a song now about getting shot in the head? Will you pretend it happened in Memphis?"

Throughout the interview, King referred to his guest as "Marc Cohn, shot in the head" and ended the interview by saying, oddly, "Congratulations." Congratulations!? For being shot in the head?

A week or so later, E. and I were watching the US Open when the camera focused on a couple of spectators - Marc Cohn and his wife. The commentary went something like this:
ANNOUNCER 1: "Now there's Marc COH-EN...singer-songwriter."
ANNOUNCER 2: "Shot in the head recently, wasn't he?"
ANN. 1: "Yes, shot in the head, in a carjacking...in Colorado."
ANN. 2: "He's recovering nicely...he's here with his wife, Elizabeth Vargas, of 20/20."

The whole thing reminds me of Nancy-Kerrigan's-mother-legally-blind. Back in the early 1990s, every time figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was in a competition, the camera had to cut to a shot of her mother in the stands, with her face pressed up against a portable television so she could see her daughter, since she was, in fact, legally blind. The announcer had to remind us of that anytime Nancy was in the building, in case we had forgotten.

If I were Marc Cohn-shot-in-the-head, I'd be pretty depressed right now. I'm sure he'd rather be known as Marc Cohn-Walking-in-Memphis.